We fish in comfort by making a chair for a PVC boat with our own hands

Every fisherman spends a lot of time in a boat in a sitting position.
Therefore, here it is worth thinking about your own comfort. After all, sitting on anything is uncomfortable and harmful to health. Despite the wide selection of fishing products on the market, they are expensive. Moreover, you can make a comfortable and reliable fishing chair on your own with a little effort and free time.

Varieties

All boat seats are divided into 3 main groups:

1. 
   Tough .
   In their production, moisture-resistant plywood or plastic is used. Such products are considered the most common. According to the type of fastening, they can be stationary (attached in one position), movable (move along the boat or around its axis).

   Such chairs are installed on longitudinal panels between the cylinders or on special stands.

2. Soft . They are a hard type, but are additionally equipped with soft foam padding.
3. Inflatable . These products are made from high strength nylon fabric. They are considered the most practical and easy to use. Their advantages include small dimensions, light weight, and the ability to be transported in the trunk of a car or in a backpack. The disadvantage of this product is installation in one position.

Advice : when choosing the best seating option for a boat, it is worth considering that products with a backrest are the most comfortable. And chairs without backs are inexpensive.

Peculiarities

The seat for the boat can be included in the standard structure of the watercraft or mounted separately as an option. In most cases, it is considered an excessive addition, and until the vessel has been tested on the water, owners consider it unnecessary to expand the equipment. Usually people think about buying a seat for the following reasons:

• to improve the comfort of the boat;
• to improve the steering position during steering;
• to increase the time spent on the water while fishing.

Inflatable boats traditionally use 2 types of seats - hard and soft. They can be installed independently or used as part of the standard equipment of the watercraft. Soft seats are usually inflated and removed after use, and you don’t even need to take them with you if you plan to go fishing for a short period of time. Stationary options are secured between the sides even before the boat is inflated.

The standard package usually includes so-called banks - plywood benches laid horizontally and fixed on the cockpit or on the bow of the vessel. They are not suitable for sitting for a long time, which is why owners prefer to tune their watercraft for long-term fishing. In a regular non-inflatable boat, quick-release seats are most often installed, providing comfort while fishing and not requiring complicated dismantling.

Choice: swivel or inflatable?

Each individual type of boat seat has its own advantages. Rigid structures are divided into:

• 
  seats equipped with backrests of different heights;

• folding chairs suitable for small boats;
• products with backs with swivel mechanisms.

Most avid fishermen prefer seats with a swivel mechanism . Their advantages include:

• ease of use;
• wide viewing angle when moving;
• Possibility of installation from any angle;
• affordable cost and the possibility of self-production.

You can also install a folding model . Its advantages include:

• speed of assembly;
• Possibility of placement in any part of the boat;
• versatility due to different mounting options.

Attention: the less space the chair takes up in the boat, the more comfortable it will be to use.

As for the positive qualities of making an inflatable seat , they include versatility. They can be used both on water and on land. The soft back helps relieve stress from the spine and provides maximum comfort during use.

Important : the inflatable chair can be placed at the stern or bow of the boat.

When choosing this or that type of seat design for a boat, it is recommended to build on your own preferences and modifications of the boat. Some fishermen strive to make massive reclining chairs that take up all the free space in the boat. Others prefer compact products with a rotating mechanism .

Mounting the echo sounder sensor

Stable echo sounder readings at speed largely depend on the correctness and reliability of its mounting on the boat transom.

The lower edge of the transom board is in close proximity to the surface of the water, which makes it the most convenient place to place the mounting elements for the echo sounder sensor.

There are several options for brackets for the echo sounder sensor, which, thanks to a clamp, are attached to the PVC transom of the boat. The main differences between them are the availability of insurance. That is, at the moment of impact with the bottom or other underwater obstacles, thanks to a special mechanism, the bracket rod together with the sensor leans back.

Adviсe. First of all, the bracket you choose should be universal and quick-release. Must have mandatory immersion depth adjustment. The bracket fittings must be either metal or durable plastic so that it does not break when it hits the bottom or driftwood. If the bracket is metal, then its coating must be of high quality, that is, highly resistant to corrosion.

Requirements

When choosing a chair for a boat, you should pay attention to:

• structural rigidity;
• the maximum permissible load on the craft;
• compliance of configuration and height with the parameters of the chair (width, height, thickness).

The main requirement for a boat chair is comfort, suitable size, and the use of quality materials .

What are they and what are they for?

Carrying a two- or three-seater rubber boat in an inflated state is quite easy - a man of average build can easily carry it several tens of meters, separating the car and the shore of a river or lake.
It is much more difficult to do this if the cockpit is filled with fishing gear and equipment, and an outboard motor is already attached to the transom. What to do? Should I remove the motor and carry all the equipment separately if I need to cross a small sandbank where there is a danger of damaging the bottom of the boat? This is extremely difficult to do.

Today you can find various wheels on sale. First of all, they differ in size and width. Experienced fishermen advise choosing wide, medium-sized wheels. Thanks to them, you can easily cross both areas with dense soil and sandy beaches - the wide wheels will not get bogged down.

It is important that both the wheels and mounts are made of materials that are not afraid of moisture. After all, they will be in the water most of the time.

Making a homemade seat for a rubber boat

The manufacturing process of an inflatable chair is as follows:

1. 
   A drawing of the future product is created (you can find it on the Internet or draw it yourself).

2. The drawing of the product is transferred to paper in real dimensions.
3. The parts are cut strictly along the lines.
4. After making the template, the markings are transferred to the prepared fabric and cut out strictly along the contours.
5. The cut parts are sewn together with strong threads.
6. All connections are taped on the inside and outside.
7. A valve is installed at the bottom of the product to inflate the chair with air.
8. All parts are assembled into a single structure.
9. The final touch in making your own inflatable chair is to check the seams and joints for leaks. To do this, the seat is inflated and placed in a container of water.

Chair with four metal legs

Making a chair from plastic pipes is very easy if you follow this pattern:

1. Cut the plastic tube into 8 pieces. 4 of them should be 50 cm long, and the remaining 4 should be 35 cm long.
2. Cut two pieces from a piece of fabric. One will serve as a seat and the other will act as a crossbar to stabilize the chair. Determine the width and length of the material yourself according to your needs.
3. Take the long tubes and connect them two at a time crosswise with bolts.
4. At the top and bottom, attach the long pieces of pipe to the short ones using plastic corners. The frame of the folding summer fishing stool is ready.
5. Take a piece of fabric folded in half and sew it over the frame that will serve as the seat.
6. Also fold a thin strip of fabric in half and sew it to the bottom support to act as a stop.
7. Adjust the tension of the bolts so that the chair folds and opens easily.

It’s easy to take a stool made in this way with you outdoors. Well, if you want to make a chair-chair for comfortable fishing, attach a metal frame to the legs. By the way, such frames can be used instead of pipes. Homemade chair with back

Installation

Installing a chair in a PVC boat is a responsible and painstaking process. Here you need to act very carefully so as not to damage the boat itself.

There are several options for installing a seat in a swimming device:

1. 
   Rotary models are installed on cylinders and mounted with special holders for stands.
   Once the stands are installed, you can begin attaching the rotating device. This workflow is considered the most problematic.

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   After installing this mechanism, it must be checked for functionality, and then proceed with the installation of the chair. The seat is simply screwed to the mechanism with 4 screws.

2. Soft models are attached to the seat with two strong . This installation method is quite fast and convenient.

Regardless of the type of seat, it is worth installing a seat stand in a PVC boat. It can be made from aluminum tubes. To fix the stand with bolts, the tubes are moved in different directions.

Transom wheels for PVC boats - mounting options, installation

The most popular accessory that helps deliver a PVC boat from the assembly point to the water is still considered to be transom wheels, which are installed on the rigid side of the inflatable boat. If you often go fishing alone, then you should think about installing similar wheels on your PVC boat.

Mounting options

The principle of operation of transom wheels is based on the fact that, depending on whether the boat is moving on land or has already been launched, the wheels occupy one of two possible positions and are fixed in it (photo 1,2,3).

By the way, for PVC boats with an inflatable bottom, curved racks are used (photo 1), and for boats with a soleplate bottom, straight ones are used (photo 2).

There is another option for installing transom wheels on a PVC boat - removable. To do this, special fastenings are installed on the transom, and while the boat is moving through the water, the stand with the wheel can be easily removed (photo 4).

All accessories for fastening wheels are usually sold complete with them; you only need tools: a drill, a screwdriver, sealant and a ruler.

Installation of transom wheels

To ensure that both wheels are installed parallel to each other, use a ruler to make markings on the transom. Next, we apply the fastener to the marked line and mark the points where we will drill. We drill holes for fastening, fill it with sealant, insert bolts into the fastening and screw it to the transom. Installation completed.

Adviсe. The wider the transom wheels are spaced, the more convenient and easier it is to manually transport the boat. But before drilling holes for the brackets, check whether the wheels will touch the cylinders when lifted to the non-working position and interfere with the rotation of the motor when moving. Also, the wheels must be strictly parallel to each other - otherwise it will be difficult to move the boat on land, and the wheels themselves will quickly fail. The axis of each mounting hole must be perpendicular to the plane of the transom so that the bolt heads and washers contact the entire surface of the elements being connected.

Exploitation

In order for a hand-made swimming chair to serve you much longer, you need to monitor and care for it. If abrasions appear on the product over time, it is recommended to apply additional protection .

Advice : if you fish a lot, try making a table for the boat as well. In nature, a folding table or a convenient table for a laptop can also come in handy.

Platform for accessories in PVC boat

We looked at the main attachments for a PVC boat, but there are also glued ones, thanks to special platforms.

As an example, let's take the most standard one, which can be glued using special glue. It is installed depending on what will be hung on it - an anchor eye, a holder for a spinning rod or other equipment that will correspond to the platform connector. Most often, various types of anchor eyelets or cable rollers are installed on it using special self-tapping screws.

Adviсe. Any glued accessories for PVC boats require high quality glue used. For these purposes, it is necessary to use special adhesives for PVC boats, sold in specialized stores, or those that come in repair kits. The gluing process itself is simple. We degrease both surfaces - the base of the platform and the place of gluing on the boat cylinder. This can be done using simple acetone. Carefully apply a thin, even layer of glue to both surfaces, trying to ensure that the glue does not extend beyond the intended contour. Following the instructions, soak the first layer for 10-15 minutes, and then apply the second layer and, after waiting for 1-2 minutes, apply the platform to the balloon. We press firmly, fix it with something heavy, and leave the boat to polymerize the glue for at least 5 hours.

Also, fishermen mount various modifications of holders for spinning rods on them.